Go on, treat yourself to a big knob...

I've been on holiday. Yes thanks...very nice. Like you care.

But it means that I'm having to catch up a bit...email, blogs, proper magazines. Two bits of my catching up segued nicely last night, relating, as they did, to Second Life.

First, I noticed that Lewis PR man Morgan McLintic used his blog to push a vacant PR position at Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life. I wouldn't have paid it much attention to be honest, as I'm not in the market for a job. But I was struck by this line in McLintic's plug:

"If you have a good grasp of PR, are flexible and willing to learn and are also 'into' Second Life, this is a killer opp."

Do they really need someone who's "'into' Second Life"? There's a lot of cynicism about it, so wouldn't it be more useful to find someone who's a sceptic? Someone who's more likely to be in touch with the more pervasive perception that Second Life is a place for saddos with no life - not even a first one, let alone a second - to hang out? Hiring an advocate will only lead, in my eyes, to PR campaigns that preach to the converted.

Interestingly, in the official Linden Lab job outline - which McLintic points to - there's no mention of wanting to find someone who's already a fan of Second Life...so presumably it's something that McLintic alone thinks is necessary..?

Later last night I was flicking through the Economist from a couple of weeks ago. Two arrived while I was away and another will be turning up tomorrow, so I haven't got the time to read the old ones in any great detail. However, a short article under the heading "Sex and the internet" caught my eye...can't imagine why. You'll need a subsciption to read it - so get one, you muppet.

It was a great little piece about how pornography has traditionally been the content to first take advantage of new media...whether photography, video, satellite TV, DVD or the internet...but that as any technology becomes etsablished, other content becomes dominant. The story cited statistics showing how, in the next few months, net communities and chat will overtake porn in enjoying the highest proportion of US site visits.

That's not to say that the appetitie for sexual content itself is subsiding, it's just moving on to other, newer technological platforms...like Second Life, for example.

Yes indeed, you might be as suprised to read as I was that a large amount of the economic activity in Second Life relates to sex (obviously you won't be surprised if you've ever been in Second Life, but I'm assuming - safely - that you haven't). It's hard to say how much, but The Economist tells me that "an employee of Linden Labs...once ventured that 30% of transactions related to sex or gambling. Edward Castronova of Indiana University estimates that sex is "a substantial portion, perhaps even the majority" of economic transactions in Second Life."

And get this...if you want your avatar to sport a knob or a fanny, you've got to buy one. Otherwise it'll look like a naked Action Man.

Linden Labs has the following mission: "To expand the human experience by building an online world allowing people to interact, communicate, and collaborate in a revolutionary way."

A simpler mission would seem to be: "To create, like, the seedy bits of Las Vegas, but online..."

Now that's a PR challenge to get your teeth into...